Packaging Like the Pros: The Hidden Process Behind Your Favorite CPG Brands

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: This is D2C pod, where the worlds of creators, consumer goods and brands collide. We get behind the wheel to show you how today's biggest products and ideas are made, launched and scaled. If it's shaping the future of commerce and culture, you'll Hear it here first. Catch new episodes weekly on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or D2C pod dot com. Be sure to check out our newsletter for weekly breakdowns and recaps linked in the show notes. So before we, before we kick off today's recording, I've got one more for you. E Commerce costs are rising. USPS changes alone could push delivery costs, uh, up more than 25% this year. And to stay competitive, you need a supply chain partner built for scale. And that's what Stored is. A modern 3 PL that unites warehousing, fulfillment and transportation with cloud software for full visibility and control. In 2024 alone, Stord saved customers $130 million in parcel fees and powered nearly 1% of all U.S. black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. Now they're offering a free mystery shopping report. See how your ops and logistics stacks up against competitors with real, actionable insights. Get yours at Stored. Link Mystery and Scale smarter with Stored. What is going on DTC Pod? Today we are super excited to be speaking with Danielle Kidney, who is the founder of the Creative Packs. So, uh, I'm really excited to have Danielle on for this episode because in the world of D2C or CPG or whenever you're trying to bring a product to life, one of the most important things, one of the first things that the customer notices is the packaging, right? And a lot of times, uh, you know, it's harder than it looks to nail beautiful packaging. I, uh, think everyone's used to seeing these beautiful brands that are scaling fast with amazing packaging, but a lot of times you don't really know what goes on behind the scenes to produce, uh, this level of packaging. What needs to happen from both a design point of view, a branding point of view, as well as, like a logistics and supply chain point of view to pull all of this stuff off. So, um, I'm really excited to have Danielle on today. And that's what we're going to be chatting about. We're going to break down how you build packaging that stands out and that can really help your brand, especially as you not only start up, but as you scale. So, um, Danielle, I'll let you kick us off. Why don't you tell me a little bit about, um, you know, your personal background and what led you into starting the Creative Pack?

Speaker A: Sure. I'm so excited to be here. Um, yes. So I founded the creative pack 11 years ago. Um, the name kind of says it all, but it's a play on words. So we create packaging, but we're also a tight knit group of creative people and we have a diverse set of skills, interests and backgrounds. Um, my background, I started my career in a London agency who focused on food and beverage packaging. And one of their biggest clients was Tesco, which is the third largest retailer in the world. And we managed a high volume account for them in private label or own brand and that spread across every category in store. So everything from a non food, you know, skincare, beauty product all the way through to bakery, buns and condiments and uh, tea and coffee. So that experience is actually what brought me to Los Angeles almost 18 years ago to help Tesco launch Fresh and Easy, which was their US small format grocery store. Um, so we started in that world and kind of have built from there. Um, I love what we do. I'm constantly, um, looking at packaging everywhere I go. Um, nobody wants to go to the grocery store with me because it takes hours and I'm going down every aisle and taking pictures and emailing clients and all kinds of things. So I'm a little bit obsessed. But it's a good thing because I love what we do and how we can help people launch their products.

Speaker B: Yeah, and I love that, um, going to the grocery store and just like nerding out on packaging, that's something that I do. It's one of the best ways to, you know, see things. It's, I feel like the packaging landscape, it's always evolving. There's always brands that are putting out new, innovative ideas and you can apply them cross category and there's so many ways to innovate and it's really cool because you're innovating in the physical world too. It's not just digital. It's like something that really comes to life and, and stands out. So, um, you know, one of the reasons I was excited to do this is you not only have experience at Tesco working with retail at massive scale, but you've also created and done a lot of the branding and the design for a lot of very pop brands that um, you know, people know in their household, even just scanning through your site. Brands like, uh, you know, Nom Nom or Lavan Cookies, uh, you know, Mother's, uh, Mother's Market, stuff like this. These are like brands that, you know, I think are super recognizable. So, um, you know, I'd love to learn a little bit more about, um, you know, talk to me about your process. Like what does the design process look like when you start working, uh, with a client not only on your side, but what is like the brand have to have and what stage should they, should they be at to bring their first package to life?

Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great question. The thing with packaging, like you said, is it's very tangible, but with that comes some timelines because you're actually printing and producing something. So I always say you should engage with uh, a designer and agency as early as possible. So I'll take calls with um, entrepreneurs that just have a business idea or a product idea and haven't really gotten much further than that because it takes time and there's a process. So our process at the very beginning is to just really establish the needs of the client. Um, ideally they bring to me like a one page brief which can be as simple as a background about the company, um, what their objective is with the project, um, and also some of the drivers to why they're developing what they are developing. Sometimes people would just tell me about the product, but I like to know, did it come about because you're solving a problem? Is it developing a product because you couldn't find that product on the market? The reason the story is so important is because it can feed into the creative. So you'll see a lot of brands right now that uh, founder led. Um, extracting that story from the founder really builds some authenticity with the brand and relatability. So people can say, oh, that could have been me, I could have done that. Someone solved this problem for me. So we always want to get to know the client. So this initial conversation, I'll be asking lots and lots of questions and also I want to get to know them. How do they think, what are their strengths and weaknesses? Um, if they come to us with just like a product idea, but they have never gone through a branding project before, that's okay. We take people step by step. Um, so from that one pager we would create a design brief and a scope of work. And the scope of work would essentially outline the steps to get from A to B. So let's say it's someone with nothing all the way through to launching. We would actually break that down and say, okay, we're going to need to come up with some, um, design concepts. We're going to create mood boards, we're going to develop those designs to make sure they're Fit for purpose. And then we're going to roll out the final packaging, whatever that is, how many skus, um, how many formats, and all of that kind of goes into our scope of work. Um, and it's really important that the process is collaborative. We don't want to race away and do what we think is right. We always kind of touch base back with the client, so we have a lot of touch points during the project so that they're on board and they're kind of coming on the journey with us. Um, and hopefully we can surprise and delight them throughout the design process with ideas that kind of push them to think differently or really nail whatever creative ideas they've brought to us. So part of that is getting to know the client, and part of it is making sure that their design is fit for purpose. So understanding who the consumer is, who are we talking to? What are their habits? How are they going to shop? Is this a Shopify website? Is it an app on your phone? Is it an ecom retailer where you're up against lots of other products in a stream of tiny little, um, pods on the phone? Are you going to be half an inch high? Your image? Is it going to tell the story? Story? So there's a lot, a lot that goes into it, but we're here to help. We don't just bamboozle clients, we kind of give them a breakdown of each step before we start.

Speaker B: So one of the questions that, um, you know, immediately comes to mind, like, when it comes to brand, there's kind of this balance, uh, you know, and the best brands do a best job of maybe not even balancing it, but just getting it perfect. But, you know, there's a balance between brand that stands out, but, like, also a brand that communicates simply and can sell. Right. So how do you, um, you know, as you approach design, what is the balance between, you know, getting that story across in terms of, like, the information and the things that, you know, universally need to be communicated, whether it's a nutritional label or, you know, specs that, like, need to just go in there, um, versus being innovative and making something, like, stand out. How do you balance? Because a lot of times, you know, obviously people want products that look pretty, but at the same time, people want products that sell. So how do you balance, uh, and how do you design for, um, you know, not only accommodating brand, but accommodating, um, sales and conversion. And how do they go together?

Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, one thing that's kind of, uh, trick of the trade. And it's something we do because we're also working with different clients in different industries in different categories. Is the first, first thing we do is a, ah, competitor review. Now there may not be a direct competitor if you're creating something super unique, but there's always something around that space. So is it that you're packaging in a liquid form and you need a pump on the top of the bottle? Is it that you need outer packaging like primary packaging and secondary packaging because the product, like over the counter medicine has a drug facts panel that's massive. So you're just simply not going to fit it all on the bottle. Um, or are you up against a gigantic Goliath? And let's, let's think about it. They might have a giant budget for consumer research. So the reason to look at the competitors is to look at form and function, but it's also to look at claims and hierarchy. And I do think there is a balance. When you're shopping online or on the phone, there's usually images with supportive text. So you can maybe do a more minimal design because you can explain it really well in the description or you can annotate the images. But when you think about, you know, when the consumer takes it home, you want to make sure that they, you know, still understand what it is and that no one picks it up by mistake or even that you're using a product that I'm watching you use and I'm like, wow, what is that? Where did it come from? How can I buy that? So we try and break it down in a very, um, simplistic form where after the competitor review, we go through, through the review with the client and we ask them, which ones stand out to you? Which ones do you like? Which ones are successful? Which one's on? That's again to get to know them. But after that we take a framework and we create a hierarchy on blank packaging so we're not designing colors or images or anything distracting. We're literally looking at the proportion between the logo and the title, the claims and the call outs, all the mandatory information that has to go on that maybe a client doesn't know because they've come from another industry. Like in food, the net weight, the servings per container, we do that in just a grayscale form so we're not distracted by any of the design yet. And we want to make sure we're aligned with the client. Do they want a really large logo, a really large title? And, and again that stems from reviewing the competitive Set. Um, and when we design against a hierarchy that's already been determined, that really helps with the next step in the process. Because then when we do a mood board and we're bringing visual cues and color palette and typography and a mood and inspiration into the board, we compare that structural technical piece with that uh, outstanding creative design essence that we're going to design against. And those two pieces help inform the concepts. So when we do concepts, they've not come out of thin air. Uh, they've been informed by the research and informed by the hierarchy. And we may design under two hierarchies. We might have one where something's bigger on one design versus the other. And then in the real world, m in the concept stage, you can see it. And we try and make sure that stage is rendered on the exact form of packaging at the same scale you're going to produce. So we know if it's a small bottle versus a large bottle or a big box or a small box. We try and take all that guesswork out of that final tangible piece by, you know, drip feeding it through the process earlier on. So that's kind of the magic. When the concepts come to life, they're actually a little bit more considered than just a good looking design without context.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think this part is so, so, so important and that is designing for function, uh, you know, first. Right. Like, and then uh, once you've got that solved, then you can figure out what the exact like form is going to be and the colors and like the splashy things that all the users remember. But like, I just love that from even um, you know, for anyone who's like launching their brand. When you're thinking about packaging design, start with the things that are non negotiable about your design. What are the things that like physically need to be in there, need to happen? Start in grayscale. It's almost like when you're designing, you know, in software systems you're using, uh, you know, you design the UX first and you're doing kind of like mockups where you might just have like, you know, boxes instead of like text or like dummy text where you're designing for hierarchy and then you can put in all the splash and color and I think a lot of maybe you know, first time, um, sort of founders or people who are exploring designs for, they might, their eye might gravitate towards something eye catching. But then you start to realize you're like, oh, wait a minute, that's catchy. But oh crap, now I need to go re, put in all of these different essential parts. So I think just kind of stripping, stripping down the way you think and what the design thinking is and building and layering on top of there. Um, I think that's just like a universally great approach to approaching, um, especially products in the physical product world. Right. Because like, it's not as easy, um, and why this is even more important, uh, in software, like, you know, if something's messed up, you go and you write a line of code and push a new release and you're done. But um, you know, and maybe that's kind of like the next topic we can talk about is in these sort of packaging designs, like what are the, you know, what are the order quantities? What does your process look like once you've kind of like got a design to not only like test it, right. So like what does that kind of testing process look like and then what does the scale look like? Obviously if you're working with uh, you know, a product launch in a Tesco that's going to be different from a new brand who's coming to work with you and maybe wants to do somewhere start with you know, a thousand, ten thousand, fifty thousand units. But um, yeah, why don't you just talk to me a little bit about once you guys have a solid, uh, design foundation in place from like the fundamentals, you've kind of layered in the colors, you've got a brand that everyone sort of agrees on. Now it comes time to like see what, how that product manifests itself in the real world. Right. We're dealing with materials, we're dealing with the manufacturer. How does the color render onto the packaging? How does the packaging feel? Um, so maybe we could start a little bit with the actual material design component and how that comes together and then we can tackle um, you know, other parts of the design process.

Speaker A: Yeah, so kind of like the process being collaborative but also being different, one project to another might have different, um, deliverables. In this case, we do ask a lot of questions about manufacturing. So is this a product that someone's making at home in a kitchen or in a, you know, a commercial kitchen? Is this a co manufacturer? Where is it being manufactured? Um, with the past, you know, five years, with freight costs and supply chain, all of these micro decisions can actually affect the final product cost and margin and profit. So we ask those questions because depending on where it's being manufactured, if it's being manufactured on a production line that exists, someone else is probably going to already solve for uh, the Bottle shape, the label size, maybe the box that it gets put in. And depending on their machinery, that could be, you know, by hand or by machine. So often clients will come to us. We, we get provided a dieline, which is a lay, flat version of the packaging, um, for us to put the design onto. So we do ask those questions a little earlier before the concept, because we don't want to design even as detailed as a clear label if the manufacturer can only do a paper label or opaque label. So we try and do that so that the design you're approving is as close to what's achievable as possible. But as you touched on, there's also cost. So depending on how many units you're printing, that will also determine the print process. So whether you're doing a digital run, um, or whether you're doing a full flexo or litho, um, commercial printing run, the cost might be higher for the digital, but you can adapt and change and do a minimum order quantity versus a full production run in a commercial environment. With a commercial printer. You might be printing print, you might have, huh, print plate costs and any changes, you know, are going to be kind of costly later down the line. So there is a system in place that we use where the artwork, uh, gets reviewed by all the parties involved so that we don't put something on a dieline upside down or back to front. Um, we understand a lot of the technical elements of dielines, and that's why we specialize in packaging. But the printer and the manufacturer, they know their machines, they know what works, they know what's been successful. They know if a label is going to wrinkle or not wrinkle. Um, so we involve them in artwork. When we release the artwork, we make sure everyone sees it and then they get a chance to say, it's too many colors, it's going to be too expensive. Um, you need to switch it to this dieline. I gave you the wrong dieline accent. Accidentally. All these kind of little, um, things can happen along the way. Um, and then we make changes to the design, refining that artwork to make sure it's fit for purpose. So in, in that, you know, primary packaging, when you're packaging the thing that you're actually selling versus the shipper box that you might produce to get it to someone's doorstep. Um, um, different print process processes, different printers, different technical things in the files that need to be on there, print finishes capabilities, um, you might find for a shipper box, you're just going to print one color on the outside because that's the most economical design. And then with that one color you have the opportunity to knock out to the craft of the box or, or white, if the box is white. So you can still be really creative but you might be limited on number of colors. Um, and then there's the unboxing experience which in the last, you know, again few years you've seen a lot of unboxing videos, surprise and delight, Easter eggs happening. There's something to be said for, you've done all this work to get the product, you know, refined, but how does the, the consumer actually experience it? And you talked about the digital space where you're designing that experience. In the physical world, you're also designing that experience. Is there a special finish, a soft touch on the label that creates a tactile feel? Is there something where it needs a texture so it's non slip out of your hands? Like there's lots and lots of things you can just do simple gloss versus matte packaging and you can do a combo where you do some spot gloss, some matte finishes. Again, the cost is part of this conversation because we don't want to go and design, you know, a, ah, Louis Vuitton priced product if it's supposed to be a value tier. So this should be discovered along the way. And we shouldn't be like taking a four color or a six color design down to one color at the last minute because I guarantee that's not going to be the brightest and most beautiful, um, result. It's better if you design for one color and you're limited at the beginning. So there's lots of sort of little hints and tricks which is why partnering with the right people who know all the technical details is really important. And you can um, you know, you can have an, an agency like ours manage the color with the printer, uh, we can attend the press check, we can go to first production. There are ways to make sure that there's consistency, um, throughout the process and that the results you get are as high quality as the product you're putting inside. So it's just about, you know, staying close to it at uh, all touch points and making sure that everyone's expectations are met and that people understand. And we're always here to help break down some of the technical language that uh, printers use to help make it a little bit easier to digest.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think, I mean just printing and color alone is like, it's a, it's its own beast. Right. Like you may have uh, a green and the way that green, even if, like, even when you're working with pantone colors and stuff, the way that digital green shows up as a pantone color, shows up as a pantone color on a particular type of material. These are all different things. So you know, having a design digitally that's, you know, very much only half the battle. And you know, there's a whole nother side that goes into, okay, how do we get this design that looks amazing in digital and how do we make sure that it comes to life? So when it hits a retail shelf or something, it, it's what we envisioned when we were going through and designing that physical product, right?

Speaker A: Yeah. And even mockups, um, we're at a stage in a project right now where we're doing physical mock ups. So we can see it at uh, in the 3D form and you know, we receive a set of mockups, the clients receives a set and then we review it together to make sure it everything from the computer screen translated onto the actual material. Um, even that step alone you might do for a trade show or you might do for an investor meeting or even a pitch. You might want the 3D object before you finalize it in your hands. And that can be, you know, a couple of hundred dollars, but it's well worth the effort before you print thousands or hundreds of thousands. Um, so we build that step in depending on the client's needs to make sure that we're all on the same page and that there's consistency.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean even something like you've got some bottles of wine, it looks like in your background, even something as simple as a label and how it renders digitally is flat. And then when you put that label on a bottle with a curve, um, you know, maybe you don't see the whole label if the design is a certain way and the packaging is a cylinder. Right. So I think there's so many things and you know, once you go to production, like these are you know, real, uh, real elements. And I think one thing that I just want to highlight is just what for a uh, brand that's starting up, what the true cost is of like messing this stuff up. Because it's something that I've been through that other founders have been through. But like, you know, you know, for example, even if you build a piece of packaging and say you send a pallet of package and this is something that even just happened with the brand that I was running a build it, build a uh, build a packaging, send it to Amazon, well now you're paying not only to create your product, you're paying for your product and imagine something goes wrong if you have to then get rid of that product. You have to pay Amazon to dispose of your pallet. Right. Like, and these are you know, real costs, not just in terms of like what the materials cost to design and implement, but in costs, ah, of what it costs to ship large volumes and what it costs to you know, in a horrible or a worst case scenario, what it costs to dispose of or um, you know, liquidate, uh, merchandise. So um, yeah, these are, it's better to get it right than to, to, to get it wrong. That is for, for certain.

Speaker A: And the other thing is it's better to do an extra round on the digital file than it is to make a print mistake. So that's why part of our process is also including more than just the founder or the brand owner in the reviews. Um, we all know some of us are good at certain things and not good at others. There might be a brand owner that's great at uh, ensuring the color and the imagery is exactly on point, but they might have a technical person look and proofread and copy and check everything and check the UPC is correct at the last stage back against the original UPC supplied. Sometimes in file versioning mistakes can happen, spelling mistakes, simple stuff. Um, we, as a point in our process we have a second or a third the designer review files with fresh eyes. So someone that hasn't been working on the project will check it before release and make sure that it's um, all those checkpoints are done. And also that's why it's good to have the manufacturer, the qc, maybe even have a regulatory review from uh, professional services, which we also can arrange and make sure that like every single piece of it is checked digitally before you print and produce. Because as you said, it can be a very expensive mistake further down the line.

Speaker B: I'd love to talk about that. Let's talk about what a review process looks like. A regulatory, um, review. I know when you go into retail it's a little bit different than when you're online. A couple of things that you mentioned, upc, right. Like what is the barcode, um, look like very easy to get the wrong barcode on your bottle, right? That's, that's a problem and that's something that you don't want to make a print mistake around on. But there's also requirements as they pertain to, for example the nutritional, uh, facts. Right. If you're in CPG or Health and Wellness or Supplements and uh, you're selling a food product, um, you know, certain sizes that the fonts need to be, certain information that needs to be, ah, contained. So how do you guys. I know you just mentioned having that review process, but are there any other call, uh, outs that you could make in terms of, you know, things or um, things that maybe not everyone's thinking about that they need to uh, get right before they go to print?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean it's a moving target because the FDA and usda for example, they recategorize and change things. And whether you know it or have noticed it, ah, often, um, you'll see from package to package you might see differences in serving size, um, portions, number of servings per container. That measurement is a factor depending on what category you're in on a product. And the same between fluid ounces and net weight. Liquids are measured differently, um, to solids. There's even um, another reason why it's good to do a competitor review. You might catch something like serving suggestion needs to be right near the product imagery, whether that's an illustration or a photo, um, because you might be showing like a lemon or a garnish of parsley that doesn't actually appear in your recipe. Um, and that sort of brings me to some of the perils of AI right now because a lot of people have been asking me about that, I mean our business, because it's food, ah, food and beverage and beauty and products like that. Yes, you can generate something. Um, where did it come from? Is that tagline belonging to a big brand like so knowing the source of where these things came from, from a trademark infringement and um, you know, ownability standpoint is concerning to me and also making sure that it meets the requirements legally and technically. So different size packages have different requirements for point size of both the net weight and the nutrition facts panel. Organic products have different requirements for calling out the organic certifier. Same with kosher. There's a lot of certifying bodies that also have technical requirements and you have to adhere to their requirements as a, uh, policy or business as well as your own. So it might be nice to like change the color of a logo that belongs to someone else, but there's a reason why you're not allowed to. So really just working with partners that know these rules, um, we double check the information we're given from a client because we don't know necessarily if it was from a reliable source. Right off the bat we measure things, we point out when things need to be bigger or smaller. Um, And I do recommend an outside review, whether that's an IP attorney making sure your claims can, can be said. Um, DTC is a great example where you might claim something on your website, but as long as you don't print that claim right on your package, you know, there are things you can and cannot say and claims are made in a very specific way like good source of protein or X number of grams of protein per serving. If it's multi serving servings, um, intentionally or mistakenly misleading, you know, customers, um, it's a very expensive mistake to get a cease and desist letter to get sued by a brand because you've copied something. Um, all of, not all of these things can be prevented. But by going through a thorough process, not cutting corners, not copying other people's packaging, um, you can hopefully set yourself up for success and also make sure that you're future proof you're not putting something on the package that's a trend or a fad or a design that's just a hot design. Right now we try and make sure that the brands stand the test of time and that they can last for a couple of years because it takes a long time. Print, produce, distribute. It might be a uh, year long process. So your product by the time it goes live might have been designed a year earlier. So it's okay to be influenced by trends and excited by new things, but just make sure they're gonna last and you're not putting 8,000 claims that are irrelevant in a year. Um, so we try and make sure those little things are ah, part of ah, our process with our clients too.

Speaker B: Danielle, the other question that I was going to ask, like, you know, you've been talking a little bit about lead times and how long it actually goes into creating uh, you know, an amazing packaging sort of run. Could you kind of walk, walk us through timelines and what thing, what things normally look like. You know, we can talk about it obviously from an emerging brand's point of view, but also like a scale up like um, you know, obviously I'm sure you have projects that run longer than others. But like ballpark for someone who's looking to get a brand off the ground, let's just say they've got a product, they've got kind of like the brand, they've got the social media coming together and they want to start um, you know, they want to bring their product to life as fast as possible. What do things look like in the fastest case scenario, whether it's working with you or working themselves, like how fast can you truly bring a solid product to market? And then what do things look like? Um, you know, for more scale ups that are looking at potentially doing like a proper rebrand across maybe multiple SKUs and rolling out things at a larger scale, what do those two worlds look like?

Speaker A: I mean, for a launch date to be realistic, I usually work backwards. So let's say, for example, you wanted to launch something in April of next year. So you had a spring, springtime launch. It, uh, you know, coordinates with the calendar event, Cinco de Mayo. Something is happening next year. So if you're packaging, let's take the longest lead time, which would probably be a tetra pack or a, um, flexible film, like a roll stock or a film, you could be looking at a 12 to 14 week lead time on just printing the material. So if you take that off your Cinco de Mayo launch and you work backwards, you're probably at, uh, you know, January. To release print ready packaging, I would also add a buffer. So I would take a couple of weeks earlier than that to make sure that you have time for all those reviews. You also have to think about the printed package is just material. It also needs to be be formed and product put inside and shipped to wherever you're shipping, whether that's a 3 PL or you're housing it in a warehouse and shipping from there. So shelf life is another thing. If your product has a short shelf life, you don't want tons of inventory coding out in the warehouse. So let's say you're doing a, uh, long lead time package like that, and then your January for release of print files. So let's say it's December. You want to leave a couple of weeks for those files to be reviewed. People might take vacations, your printer might be, you know, closed for the holidays. So let's say two to four weeks for the reviews. So now you're at November. Uh, then before that you've probably had to do some photography, some imagery, gather your print specs, your product specs. So that might be four weeks earlier. So now we're in October. And then you want to give your design team or whoever you're, you know, you want to give them some time to go through that process of competitor review, audit, mood boards, design developments. I would say for design, ideally you have, you know, 12 weeks, maybe two weeks for the onboarding and the research, four weeks for concept, two for developments and production. So basically September, we're already late for next April. And that's like dream crushing to some people. So shorten the package. Now say you're going to launch a box, a, uh, carton, a box of cereal or cookies. Maybe it's a four or six week lead time. So now you've just bought back, you know, six to eight weeks in the timeline. If it's, um, a label, you might have two to four weeks of labels. So now you've just gained a little bit more time. So you do have to be realistic because if you rush the beginning, you're likely to make either a mistake in not the right design, or maybe a technical mistake on the file, or maybe you're rushing through. So speed isn't always the best. Um, it's really good to make sure every single person in the process has their normal amount of time to capture changes. And so I would say six months, nine months, a year. A longer project might be over a year, um, shortest time frame, 12 weeks for the whole thing. We launched a brand last year, Fresh food brand, with a printed sleeve. The recipes were existing, the trays that the sleeves went on were existing. And it was brief to us, I think in January and it was on shelf by April. And that's photo shoots, food stylists, all of it. So you can be quick, but maybe not with something that's off the ground, like from scratch. Never been developed before. Um, because there's quite a few pieces that you. I wouldn't recommend rushing.

Speaker B: Yeah. And just from sort of like my experience in seeing this, I think there's kind of a. There's a couple ways to go about it. I think, um, you know, there is an element, especially like when you're starting a brand, maybe you don't have like that pure product market fit yet. You're still exploring, you're still making sure it's something people want. I think having the control and maybe you spend a little bit more in the beginning, but like having the control to order, you know, three, especially with D2C. Right. Being able to, um, you know, order something like 300 or 500 units and test and like try to understand, like how does this work and learn from your customers and iterate. I think it's valuable. Um, but at a certain point, once you realize that you do have that like product market fit and you want to start scaling up, like if you keep iterating, you're going to just drive yourself crazy because you're going to be iterating through, uh, you know, product form factors, you're going to be getting iterating through design form factors. You're gonna have packaging that doesn't Line up with your other packaging and it's just going to sort of be a nightmare that kind of comes together. So, um, you know, I think there's value definitely to being able to like, iterate early on, but like, once you kind of know where it is that you want to go and you're ready to, um, you know, do things properly, I think you'll go crazy. If you just iterate, iterate and iterate and you're bound to run into, um, problems in matching your demand to the specific units that go into your packaging and you're better off kind of, you know, where it's, it might say, hey, let's take some time. Let's get everything right from a design perspective, from a regulatory perspective, from a brand perspective, materials perspective, um, and it might feel like it takes a little bit longer. Uh, but like you were saying, you, you know, you're better off, um, you know, crossing all the boxes and, and dotting all the, the eyes and crossing the TE's, then you are, um, you know, ending up with a big PO that, that goes bad. So, um, this is, this is, this is really helpful. The last question that, um, I did have for you based on, um, you know, like production would be what are some of the. Now you've created design and brands and across multiple different, like, product categories in, in the CPG space, um, what stands out is like, maybe some of the biggest learnings that um, you know, you've seen along the way, whether it's mistakes that other brands have made, things that went really well, that like, worked out great. But like, if you were speaking to a, you know, founder, uh, or an operator of a brand who is like, tackling the design supply chain and packaging side of the business, like, what are some of the most important like, learnings you'd say you've, you've witnessed in the field?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, 20 years doing it, you've seen a lot, maybe not everything, every scenario that could happen. But just on that, you know, the initial objective of the project is obviously for it to be six successful and measured, whatever successful means to the client. So it could be an uplift in sales, it could be selling through the 300 units that you outlined at the start. Again, your success is going to be measured differently. Um, I will say that in this current environment, building in the margin and the profitability from the outset is crucial. And you can, there's a couple of tips that you can use at the very beginning stages which might narrow down some of those iterations. You're talking about endless iterations, not regular iterations, but you can work backwards to a price point that you think will sell. So depending where you're selling, depending on the competitor to have set, there might be kind of like a, um, upper threshold at which people are willing to pay for a product like this. So you know what, maybe your ounce size or your net weight gets measured according to the cost of the product with the margin built in and that you cap it like that. So that's kind of a tip. We designed a broth eight years ago in a custom bottle which was a very expensive outlay for the client initially. It's still on shelf today. But it was a, ah, 24 ounce size. And that size was unique in the marketplace because it was the right size to sell fresh broth, um, in a custom bottle. So the bottle was engineered to a price point. Now you could do that with any product, um, even when you're selling on Amazon, you want to take the costs, add them to add them all up, add on your profit and say, will someone spend, you know, 5,999 on this or will people only spend 39? In which case maybe I need half the amount. So really thinking through the whole life cycle to make sure your product is relevant and stays relevant. And sometimes differentiating doing something well sometimes means creating something that's never been done before. That broth project, other people were in a tetra pack shelf stable. We did a fresh broth in a custom bottle with a shrink wrap. It had little markings on the side for when you were running out of broth, so you could still see through the container. Um, I think there's just smart ways to do it. The cookie company, um, they had three price points. A four pack, an eight pack and a 12 pack. So we actually designed three shippers, one that held a four pack, one that held six cookie or, uh, eight cookies and a dozen cookies. And economically we made the box the exact same insert to hold the cookies. So it was either one insert, two inserts or three inserts. So now when they're ordering, they're actually ordering hundreds of thousands of the inserts. But they're not unique to the pack size. We made the box format, design and everything else the exact same across the three footprints. So you could gift your friend four cookies, you could send 12 as a corporate gift. There's ways to make one SKU work harder and deliver in different ways. And to your point as well, on the website you can see, uh, are we selling more 12 packs or 4 packs? Are we selling does anyone want an 8 pack? Maybe that one goes away after year one. So us bringing ideas and the client also thinking through the product themselves and maybe even, you know, having a CFO or a fractional CFO run the numbers, if that's not your strength. I mean, ultimately we want to design for a brand that's going to stay, you know, and be a favorite in people's hearts and minds. And shopping carts, whether that's digital shopping carts or real shopping carts in a store. Um, and also making sure that D2C might not be your only channel. You might end up in retail like Dollar Shave, Club Harry's. They ended up on an end cap at Target. So what does success look like? Maybe it's getting the brand out there and then having it on an end cap at Target where people are walking past hundreds, hundreds, hundreds of people seeing your brand. So you don't want to dial it down or up. You want to make sure it's fit for the channel and for the consumer and make sure that they're comfortable, you know, with the price and the quality and that you can pivot. So I don't know if that's helpful, but a couple of live examples of, and one other thing I'll say about the digital space is scale that design down. Scale it all the way down to a thumbnail. Does it work? Have you made a pack format that no one recognizes? So people are like, I don't even know what this hexagonal weird shaped box, like what's inside. So you don't want to make it so foreign that people don't recognize it. And you might want to pump up like pack size, 3 pack, 24 pack, 10 pack. You might want to pump that up in your digital PDP asset. It doesn't need to be gargantuan on the package itself, but when people are scrolling, you want to know that you're going to get 10 of those, not the competitors four pack. You're selling 10. So all your little points of difference amplify in the digital space. Um, would be another tip. I would say.

Speaker B: No, I love these. Super helpful. Um, and I love the concept of thinking, you know, in terms of also how does the packaging relate to the pricing that you can get? And thinking strategically about that, that's something that I think is so, so important and maybe goes overlooked. Right. You're thinking about, oh, the constraints of the product and you know, you want it in this form factor. But like, wait a minute, maybe you can actually test and think about what's the right size. Um, and what's the right price that someone wants to pay for that size? I think that's super spot on. Um, as we wrap up here, uh, Danielle, um, would love for you to shout out, uh, you know, where we, where our listeners can connect with you. Um, you know, your site, your socials, all that good stuff.

Speaker A: Stuff, yeah, I'd love to. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn, so, uh, connect with me there. Danielle Kidney. And then all our socials and websites, uh, are thecreative pack.com or@thecreative Pack. And yeah, I'd love to connect if people have questions, follow ups, um, comments, um, totally available.

Speaker B: Sweet. Danielle, thanks so much for coming on pod. This has been awesome. Talking about everything, uh, packaging and. Yeah, appreciate it. Thanks so much.

Speaker A: Thanks for having me.

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